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Random things I found useful, entertaining and/or inspiring this week:

Thing 1: Help with Going Stoveless

I'll be getting on the trail to finish the last 400 mile of the AT starting June 1...OMG, that's two weeks from today! I'm so not planning or working out like I was last year. Let's see how that goes.

Anyhoo...I've been thinking about going stoveless. You can save almost a pound of weight if you drop the stove, gas and cookset in favor of a plastic peanut better jar. It's the thought of tortillas and tuna that queers me on the whole idea. I can no longer face tuna wraps, or anything in a tortilla. Ugh.

The only question left is this: can I survive without hot coffee in the morning?

Thing 2: Another hike for the bucket list.

My To Do list of hikes is growing--Colorado Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Long Trail, the Wonderland Trail. Now add to that the Tahoe Rim Trail. Sounds awesome and we have family in Truckee we need to visit.

Thing 3: New Word, New Concept!

The practice of baking something in order to put off doing something else you need to do.

Full disclosure: I've got banana bread in the oven as we speak because I wasn't sure I could muster a blog post today.

Procrastibaking sort of reminds me of Intentional Hiking in that I approached the activity with a question. What should I blog about today? As I creamed the butter and sugar and mashed the bananas and measured out the flour, an idea for this random list was born.

And when I'm finished with my blog post, I will reward myself with some freshly baked banana bread, Yum.

First successful session of procrastibaking under my belt.

Thing 4: Walking is a creative act

Or at least it fosters creative thinking. I've been saying that for eons. And it's nice to have my experience validated in the New Yorker...Why Walking Helps us Think.

Thing 5: Hiking season is Instagram season.

I'm going to try to continue with my daily blogging here once I get back on the trail. I've got an app to make it easier (fingers crossed). An Anker to keep my phone charged. And a newfound resolve to go slowly, practice Intentional Hiking and savor the trail.

That said, if I fall off the blogging habit, I'll surely keep up with ONE daily Instagram post @rubythroatwhiteblaze. And since I'm planning to sketch every day on the trail, I'll also be sharing my sketches @rubythroatsketches.

Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.

— Greg Anderson

My habit is to keep pushing

When I'm churning up a long uphill stretch, I vacillate between continuing to chug undeterred till I reach the top and stopping for a periodic break, knowing how refreshing even a slight pause can be.

My habit is to keep going, head bent to the ground, breathing in time to my steps, sometimes, on particularly long stretches that prove painful, reciting the Gayatri Mantra over and over and over again.

The wisdom of Mowgli

Last year, while reciting my mantra on the grueling way up to Bald Knob, mile 810 in Virginia, I stopped short when I encountered another hiker on the side of the trail. Mowgli.

He had popped up his hammock for some chill time. He was just hangin' around in the heat of the day, hiking his own hike. Which meant listening to what he needed and taking action, or inaction, on that inner guidance.

I thought of Mowgli many times after that first encounter with him and his hammock. I was convinced he was doing something right, whether he finished or not.

Portable napping?! OMG!!!

Mowgli and his hammock immediately came back to life for me when I read that.

And it's gotten me thinking about my hiking plan this summer--the southern terminus of the AT in June, the northern terminus in August. About how I'll do things differently this year. About how I've rededicated myself to savoring the journey, every step and every pause.

To the savoring of pauses...I'm planning to join the ranks of the hammock hangers this year.

I'll pack my Warbonnet Blackbird hammock on the outside of my pack, along with my pocket rocket stove and ginger turmeric tea bags. So I can stop like Mowgli when the inspiration to nap hits.

Get there, don't get there. It doesn't matter. What matters is following my own path and letting that path unfold moment by moment, step by step, nap by nap.

(NOTE TO SELF: Here's another thing to do differently. Take more pictures of people, especially people doing things differently. I regret not having a picture of Mowgli lounging in his hammock. And of that little elfin' man who appeared like a hallucination at the top of Bald Knob wearing a big smile, a whit button down shirt and suspenders). And the pants-less man hiking up to Mount Washington in a drizzly fog, legs chapped red from the cold, leaving me to wonder what happened to his pants?)

It’s so fun seeing the flurry of thru-hike planning happening now on The Trek. I love to plan and to do research, so I’m having some pleasant, and not-so-pleasant, flashbacks to last year at this time as I was making my own decisions.

Not-so-pleasant because I definitely wasted some money on bad purchases (anyone need a hammock?). And I wasted some precious, precious calories on carrying useless things.

Gearing up is a learning process and you don’t really know what works and what doesn’t until you’re actually out there chewing up the trail like a beaver in a stand of new-growth saplings.

Here, then, are my top five pieces of gear…the things I will carry religiously on all future long distance hikes. Spoiler alert…the hammock does not make the cut.

1. Brolly, my beloved Umbrella

Anyone who met me on the trail last year probably knows how smitten I am with my umbrella. Best. Thing. Ever. In spite of the fact that I didn’t use it that often.

But when it rained, Brolly was my savior and worth every ounce. (8 ounces, if you’re wondering. Here’s the one I loved.)

Umbrellas keep your top half dry and allow for ventilation…no sweating on the inside of a “breathable” rain jacket. Rain jackets don’t breath. Ever. Pair it with a rain skirt, and you’re good to go for head to ankle dryness. (Not head to toe because the feet always get wet and you just gotta deal.)

One way to deal with wet feet. Just go ahead and splash in the puddles and streams like a three year old.

And if you’re dehydrated and nauseous and frying in the sun, the umbrella will give you some shady relief. Personally, I like naps under rhododendrons.

Still skeptical? I met an ultralighter name Bobcat somewhere in New York during a pelting downpour. His pack was the size of my food bag and he was practically naked because, who carries clothes when you’re hiking 30 miles a day? But he was rocking a folding umbrella and big shit-eating grin as he strode on by, dry and happy under his brolly.

You won’t see many of these on the trail, but I grew to love this tent. I won’t lie, there’s a learning curve to getting a good pitch (hint…let out all the guy lines like they say in the instruction video).

But once you’ve got it, this tent is sweet. Lightweight (18 ounces). Fast pitching. Big enough to hold me and all my stuff (I’m small, so results may vary). Tall enough to do Supta Padangusthasana.

It isn’t free-standing, but that didn’t actually matter.

I was so worried about the tent platforms in New Hampshire. I fretted for a thousand miles about how I would pitch my non-freestanding tent on a platform. Totally needless worry because it turned out to be easy.

Here’s how I did it: Pitch the Altaplex so the front of the tent is parallel to the boards on the platform. Secure the guylines by sliding the knots between the boards. Bob’s your uncle.

Now I adore platform camping. Guaranteed flat every time.

Front of the tent parallel to the boards.

Slide the side guy line knot between the boards.

Or get creative with sticks, rocks, stakes hammered between the boards.

All good things, but the most important thing it did was cushion my hips so I could sleep at night. I’m a side sleeper and my hips would get sore after an hour or so. So I would thrash around from side to side all night long trying to relieve that soreness.

No bueno!

A fellow hiker suggested I put the Z Seat under my hips (under my sleeping pad) and sleeping on the ground has never been the same since.

I hemmed and hawed on buying this app, but it’s worth every penny for the real-time updates, the town maps and figuring out where you are when you’re in the woods in the middle of nowhere.

Two things about Guthooks, though.

Thing one… read the fine print. The magic is in the fine print. And by fine print, I mean scroll through the comments. That’s where the good stuff is.

Thing two… use Guthooks sparingly. A Guthooks check every five minutes makes for miserable hiking. I found ignorance about elevation to be climbed and miles left to hike to be bliss.

One last thing…don’t check Guthooks while you’re hiking. You’re just asking for skinned knees.

5. Foot Balm (with toe socks and trail runners)

This is a three for one, but, seriously, do everything you can to take impeccable care of your feet. For obvious reasons.

I had two minor blisters in the first week of my hike as I got used to the mileage, then never saw another one again. I credit the trifecta of Altra Lone Peaks with their wide toe box, Injinji toe socks (the wool ones) and my essential oil laced foot balm.

I changed my shoes every 500 miles and massaged foot balm into my warrior peds every night and my feet were happy for miles and miles).

(People gave me grief about my use of essential oils on the trail. You know…bears and stinky stuff. But the bears never materialized to gnaw my feet off, so I kept at it with the balm.)

Okay, just one more...

Dang. I could go on and on.

If I could add one more, it would be sending my clothes off to Insect Shield to douse them in tick killing goodness. I saw the beasts, but none latched on over the whole summer. Insect Shield is the bomb.

I got so bonded with all my stuff while I was out there. Well, not all of it. Some things I happily sent home. I’ll share that list next week. Learn from my bad decisions!

Meanwhile, what gear decisions are you struggling with? Leave a comment and let me know what you’re agonizing over.

I offer five + five (ten!) resupply points along the AT that are, literally, along the AT. No hitchhiking required. You hardly have to break stride because you’ll be walking right past many of them anyway.